Commentary and Opinion

March 18, 2008

2008 State of the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Industry

Excerpts from AIIM President, John Mancini’s Keynote Address — 4 March 2008 — AIIM International Exposition and Conference

There are four intersecting tensions in the marketplace that have been at work over the past 2 years and are aligning right now to change all of this and to truly create the mainstream market that we have all thought was on the horizon.

#1 – Control Over half of those surveyed have either marginal confidence or no confidence in the integrity of their electronic information. That awareness alone is doing a lot to change the “pain”/”make the pain go away” equation.

March 13, 2008

“A Wise old Man and a Wise old Woman Reach the Same Conclusion”

by David Badertscher

“As Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg observed: ‘In working as a lawyer, law teacher, and now judge, I have discerned no distinctive male or female styles of thinking or writing. And I agree with Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Jeanne Coyne, who said, when asked whether women judges decide cases differently because they are women:

“A wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion”‘.

–Handbook of Justice Research in Law, by Joseph Sanders, V. Lee Hamilton, Springer, 1981, p.311- From Amazon Book Preview Feature.

March 12, 2008

Q&A Head of Technical Services in a Law Library, What’s In Your Job Description

by David Badertscher

QUESTION:

I am interested in finding out the types of assignments that other Heads of Tech Services (or equivalent titles) are responsible for, besides just running the tech services dept. I’m wondering if there is a future for those of us in this position. Is this position part of the hierarchy which may become unnecessary? What ways are you dealing with the transition of tech services depts.? I would appreciate it if you could share your thoughts and possibly your position descriptions with me. I’ve spent a lot of time pondering the future.

SUMMARY OF RESPONSES:*

March 12, 2008

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer Resigns

by David Badertscher

NEW YORK (AP) – Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced Wednesday that he is resigning, completing a spectacular fall from power for a politician whose once-promising career imploded amid allegations that he paid thousands of dollars for high-end prostitutes.

“I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been,” Spitzer said, with his expressionless wife Silda standing at his side. “There is much more to be done, and I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people’s work.”

Spitzer says his resignation is effective Monday. He will be replaced by Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who will become New York’s first black governor.

March 11, 2008

Tammy Raum’s Internet Research Tips – NY State Administrative Code’s Print and Online Editions Contain Important Variations for Evidence!

by David Badertscher

Tammy Raum is:

Senior Research Librarian, New York City Law Dept. Library and may be contacted at: tammyraumprof@gmail.com

Research Information for State Administrative Code: NYCRR and Litigation Protocol

March 10, 2008

Windows Vista Virtulization: What You Need to Get Started

by David Badertscher

BY: Ruest, Danielle and Nelson Ruest. ‘Windows Vista Virtulization: What You Need to Get Started,” Informationweek.com News. (March 10, 2008).

“Running Vista in a virtual machine gives users access to all of the operating system’s features while avoiding hardware and application-compatibility obstacles. Here’s a primer to get you started, with a link to a free, downloadable e-book.”

To see complete article and links referenced, click here.

March 4, 2008

Tammy Raum’s Internet Research Tips for Women’s History Month, March 2008

by David Badertscher

BY TAMAR RAUM*

March is Women’s History Month, and a wealth of historical, social, political, and cultural knowledge is available on the internet. The following internet page of the NWHP (National Women’s History Project) highlights notable achievements of outstanding women.

http://www.nwhp.org/whm/test.php

March 3, 2008

Internet Society (ISOC) Participates in the Open Consultations of the Internet Governance Forum

by David Badertscher

The following was contributed by Bill Graham*

The Internet Society played a significant role in the second meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Rio de Janeiro in December, 2007. ISOC hosted an Open Forum on ISOC’s work and worked with partners to organize or participate in nine other sessions, including the Opening and Closing Panels of the IGF itself.

Planning has now begun for the 2008 IGF, which will be held in Hyderabad, India from 3-6 December. ISOC Board of Trustees members, ISOC staff members, and a large number of ISOC members participated in the IGF Open Consultations held in Geneva on 26 February 2008. The meeting was convened in the United Nations headquarters and was attended by

March 3, 2008

Top Ten

by David Badertscher

[From an article by Tony Mauro in the January 29, 2008 issue of Legal Times]

“One way to get a rise out of usually reticent federal judges is to ask them about the sentencing mess — and particularly, the Supreme Court’s role in muddying the waters with a series of difficult-to-follow sentencing decisions since the beginning of this century. Frustration and anger will often spew forth.”

“U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf of the District of Nebraska channeled that frustration into a remarkable David Letterman-style Top 10 list, just published along with articles by other judges in the inaugural online companion to the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law. Kopf, a 1992 appointee of President George H.W. Bush, writes that he devised the list ‘with tongue partly in

March 3, 2008

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

by David Badertscher

[From “The History of an American Obsession: The Lie Detectors” by Ken Alder.]

“Despite this warning, the search for Momus’s window has continued down the centuries. The Greeks developed a science of physiognomy to assess people’s character from their facial features and gestures. On the assumption that anxious deceivers generated less saliva, uspected liars in ancient China were asked to chew a bowl of rice and spit it out. Judges in India scanned for curling toes. One pious Victorian physician suggested that God had endowed human beings with the capacity to blush so as to make their deceptions apparent. Today, you can pick up the basics of body language for a few bucks on almost any library resale

table – ‘Who’s Lying to You and Who’s Lusting for You!’ – along with guides for potting tricksters when you travel abroad. Popular manuals, updated with the latest findings of neuroscience, advise you how to track the eye movements and hand gestures of your spouse, boss, and stockbroker.